Goodbye Argentina. The Club World Cup will miss your fans but not your football

New York Times

3 days ago

There were 93 minutes on the clock. One of the Italian journalists in the press tribune at Lumen Field stopped watching the game and gazed down at the River Plate fans below him. Their team were 2-0 down, heading out of the Club World Cup, but you would never have known it. Again and again, at the very top of their voices, they restated their love.
Advertisement
'Bellissima, meraviglioso,' the journalist said, shaking his head. Beautiful, marvellous. 'I've never seen anything like it.'
Moments later, what remained of the game was in flames. River, who needed a miracle or three, decided to stop trying for them and instead went full scorched earth. Gonzalo Montiel was sent off for acute head loss. In fairness, it could have been any one of about six River players. At the final whistle, Marcos Acuna tried to chase Denzel Dumfries into the changing rooms.
Beautiful? Marvellous? Not so much. This was ugly, undignified stuff. And here, in tidy, diorama form, you had the final balance sheet of this Club World Cup — not just for River, but for the Argentine contingent in general.
This tournament will miss the fans. What River and Boca Juniors mustered on the pitch — long periods of scrappiness with occasional outbreaks of football — will be forgotten by daybreak.
Let's sink one more for the road. Boca's fans especially breathed life and vitality into the first week of this shiny, slightly soulless competition. Even those keen to hold this thing at arm's length, wary of what it might mean to live for a month inside Gianni Infantino's ego dreams, found their resistance melting, if only momentarily.
On the west coast of the United States, the River supporters had been less of a news item, their presence watered down by the sheer geography of Los Angeles. Here in Seattle, though, you had the feeling of bearing witness to a mass pilgrimage. If this is as close to a true football city as can be found in the U.S., the travelling River supporters did it justice, turning every street scene into a vivid red and white collage.
There was plenty to be excited about at kick-off. Qualification for the last 16 was still in River's hands. There was also Tuesday's Boca result. Not only were their bitter rivals going home early; they had failed to beat Auckland City's literal part-timers. It was a gift from the gods, destined to be worked into the rich, vindictive tapestry of the Superclasico.
Advertisement
Well. The needle lord giveth. The needle lord also taketh away. There is no shame in losing to Inter, especially when they play as well as they did here, but River will still be joining Boca on the plane back to Buenos Aires in the morning.
There will be parallel post-mortems. For Boca, the Club World Cup accentuated a feeling of drift that has surrounded the club for months, maybe even years. The president, Juan Roman Riquelme, will come under renewed scrutiny. His decision to bring veteran manager Miguel Angel Russo back on the eve of the tournament now looks like an act of nostalgia and crude populism.
River are a better team than Boca. They might have beaten Monterrey in their second match and were unfortunate to lose striker Sebastian Driussi to injury against Urawa Red Diamonds. In Marcelo Gallardo, they have a genuinely smart coach who transformed the club, inside and out, during his first spell at the Monumental.
Still, there are questions to be asked. How will they replace the Real Madrid-bound Franco Mastantuono? Would a bit more discipline — their entire first-choice midfield was suspended against Inter — have given them a better chance? Does Gallardo still have the hunger?
Inevitably, there will also be reflection about what this means for Argentina. The fact all four Brazilian teams have made it through the group stage will not be lost on the media in the two countries. Nor could River or Boca really paint themselves as unlucky losers.
It all plays into the wider narrative, the one that tells of a power shift in the South American game. The past six editions of the Copa Libertadores have been won by Brazilian clubs. Four of those finals were all-Brazilian affairs. Boca and River have 10 titles between them — no Brazilian team has more than three — but history can only sate you for so long.
Advertisement
Boca and River have colossal fanbases but have suffered financially due to the rolling financial crisis in Argentina. Their revenues — particularly those from sponsorships and marketing — are lower than those of the big Brazilian clubs, who can afford to sign and pay better players. More of them, too. There has also been a wave of professionalisation in Brazilian football that has yet to be replicated in Argentina, where many club hierarchies still bow to powerful fan groups.
There is, in fairness, no great sense of crisis. Argentine football's smaller clubs can still punch above their weight: witness Racing's success in the Copa Sudamericana, South America's Europa League equivalent, last year. Plus, of course, there is the all-conquering national team. It is hard to be too down about things when you have the World Cup trophy in your possession.
Still, the performances of the big two in the U.S. should provide some food for thought. The Brazilian clubs have made the gap between South America and Europe look smaller. Boca and River, for all the glorious sound and fury in the stands, have made it look like a chasm.